Philosophy of the Modern Era

Trends of Thought in the Nineteenth Century

The intellectual life of the nineteenth century was far more complex than that of its predecessor, due to several reasons. First, the domain encompassed by intellectual life expanded significantly. Both America and Russia made substantial contributions to this development, while Europe became increasingly aware of Indian philosophy, both ancient and modern. Second, science, which had been the principal source of new ideas since the seventeenth century, achieved new triumphs, particularly in geology, biology, and organic chemistry. Third, machine production profoundly altered the social structure and provided humanity with a new perspective on its power in relation to the natural physical environment. Fourth, a deep protest—both philosophical and political—against traditional systems of thought, politics, and economics prompted challenges to many views and institutions previously considered inviolable. This protest manifested in two distinctly different forms: one romantic and the other rationalist (I use these terms in a broad sense). The romantic protest extends from Byron, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche to Mussolini and Hitler. The rationalist protest begins with the French philosophers of the revolution, is transmitted in a somewhat weakened form by the philosophical radicals in England, takes on a profound character with Marx, and concludes in Soviet Russia.

A new factor was the intellectual dominance of Germany, beginning with Kant. Although Leibniz was German, he almost always wrote in Latin or French, and his philosophy was very little influenced by German thought. The German idealists following Kant, as well as late German philosophy, were profoundly affected by German history. Much that seems strange in German philosophical speculation reflects the spirit of a strong nation deprived of its natural power due to historical contingencies. Germany owed its international standing to the Holy Roman Empire, yet the emperor consistently lost control over his nominal subjects. The last powerful emperor was Charles V, who owed his might to his possessions in Spain and the Netherlands. The Reformation and the Thirty Years' War shattered what remained of German unity, leaving numerous small principalities subject to France. In the eighteenth century, only one German state—Prussia—successfully resisted France. This is why Frederick was called the Great. However, Prussia too could not withstand Napoleon, being completely defeated at the Battle of Jena. The resurrection of Prussia under Bismarck represented a revival of the heroic past of Alaric, Charlemagne, and Barbarossa (to Germans, Charlemagne is considered German rather than French). Bismarck demonstrated his understanding of history when he declared, "We shall not go to Canossa."

Yet, while politically dominant, Prussia was culturally less developed than Western Germany. This explains why many prominent Germans, including Goethe, felt no regret over Napoleon's success at Jena. Germany in the early nineteenth century was characterized by extraordinary economic and cultural diversity. In East Prussia, serfdom still persisted. The rural aristocracy was deeply mired in rural ignorance, and the working class was utterly devoid of even basic education. Western Germany, on the other hand, had partially been under Roman rule in antiquity; since the seventeenth century, it had fallen under French influence. It was occupied by French revolutionary armies and adopted liberal institutions similar to those in France. Some princes were educated individuals who patronized the arts and sciences, emulating the courts of the Renaissance. The most notable example was the principality of Weimar, where the Grand Duke was a patron of Goethe. Naturally, these princes were largely opposed to German unity, as it would undermine their independence. They were, therefore, antipatriots, and many distinguished individuals who depended on them saw Napoleon as a bearer of a higher culture than that which existed in Germany.

Gradually, throughout the nineteenth century, the culture of Protestant Germany became increasingly Prussian. Frederick the Great, as a free thinker and admirer of French philosophy, endeavored to establish Berlin as a cultural center. The Berlin Academy had as its permanent president the distinguished Frenchman Maupertuis, who, unfortunately, became a target of Voltaire's merciless mockery. Frederick, like other enlightened despots of his time, did not seek economic or political reforms. What was truly achieved was a small group of hired thinkers. After his death, most cultural figures could again be found in Western Germany.

German philosophy was more closely associated with Prussia than German literature and art. Kant was a subject of Frederick the Great. Fichte and Hegel were professors in Berlin. Prussia had little influence on Kant, as he faced troubles with the Prussian government due to his liberal theology. However, both Fichte and Hegel became philosophical heralds of Prussia, preparing the ground for the subsequent identification of German patriotism with reverence for Prussia. Their efforts in this regard were continued by great German historians, especially Mommsen and Treitschke. Finally, Bismarck convinced the German nation to unite under Prussian authority, thereby securing victory for the least internationally-minded elements of German culture.

Throughout the period following Hegel's death, academic philosophy largely remained traditional and, consequently, lacked substantial significance. British empirical philosophy dominated in England nearly until the end of the century, while in France its reign ended somewhat earlier. Gradually, however, Kant and Hegel gained footholds in the universities of France and England, at least among philosophy professors. The educated public, however, was very little captivated by this movement, which had few adherents among the scientific community. Writers who continued the academic tradition (John Stuart Mill representing the empirical side of academic philosophy; Lotze, Sigwart, Bradley, and Boutroux adhering to positions of German idealism) were by no means at the forefront of philosophers, but rather ranked lower than those whose systems were generally accepted. Academic philosophy had often remained at a distance from the most powerful thought of the age, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when it was primarily scholastic. In all such instances, the historian of philosophy pays more attention to non-professional heretics than to professors.

Most philosophers of the French Revolution combined science with views stemming from Rousseau. Helvétius and Condorcet are typical of the blend of rationalism and enthusiasm. Helvétius (1745—1771) had the honor of seeing his book "On the Mind" condemned by the Sorbonne and burned by the executioner. Bentham read it in 1769 and immediately resolved to dedicate his life to developing principles of legislation, stating, "What Bacon was for the natural world, Helvétius was for the moral world. The moral world, therefore, has its Bacon, but its Newton has yet to come." James Mill took Helvétius's doctrine as a guide for the education of his son John Stuart.

Following Locke's doctrine that the mind is a tabula rasa, Helvétius viewed the differences among individuals as entirely conditioned by differences in upbringing. Each individual's talents and virtues are the result of his education. Genius, he argues, often depends on chance: had Shakespeare not been caught as a poacher, he would have been a wool trader. Helvétius's interest in legislation arises from the doctrine that the main educators of youth are forms of government and the manners and customs that arise from them. People are born ignorant, but not foolish; it is their upbringing that makes them foolish.

In ethics, Helvétius was a utilitarian; he spoke of the pleasure of doing good. In religion, he was a deist and a passionate anticlerical. In his theory of knowledge, he adopted a simplified version of Locke: "Enlightened by Locke, we know that our ideas and, consequently, our mind are due to our senses." Natural sensitivity, he asserts, is the sole cause of our actions, thoughts, passions, and sociability. He sharply diverges from Rousseau in his assessment of our knowledge, which he holds in very high regard.

His teachings are optimistic, as only perfect education is necessary to make a person perfect. There is a belief that it would be easy to find such education if priests did not obstruct access to learning.

The views of Condorcet (1743—1794) align with those of Helvétius, though they bear a greater influence from Rousseau. He asserts that human rights are derived from one fundamental truth: that man is a sensitive being, capable of reasoning and assimilating moral ideas, which leads to the conclusion that people can no longer be divided into rulers and subjects, deceivers and the deceived. "These principles, for which the noble Sidney paid with his blood, and which Locke supported with the authority of his name, were then developed by Rousseau with greater precision, on a broader scale, and with greater force." Locke, he says, was the first to demonstrate the limits of human knowledge. "This method was soon adopted by all philosophers, and by applying it to morality, politics, and social economy, they were able to navigate these fields almost as reliably as in the realm of natural sciences."

Condorcet holds deep admiration for the American Revolution. "Common sense should have prompted the inhabitants of the British colonies to realize that the Englishmen born across the Atlantic received from nature exactly the same rights as other Englishmen born under the Greenwich meridian." The Constitution of the United States, he declares, is based on natural law, and the American Revolution made human rights known throughout Europe, from the Neva to the Guadalquivir. However, the principles of the French Revolution are "purer, more precise, and deeper than those that guided the Americans." These words were penned while he was in hiding from Robespierre. Shortly after, he was captured and imprisoned. He died in prison, but the circumstances of his death remain unknown.

Condorcet believed in the equality of women. He was a genuine pioneer of Malthus's theory of population, which for him did not carry the grim consequences it did for Malthus, as he linked it to the necessity of birth control. Malthus's father was a student of Condorcet, and through him, Malthus became acquainted with Condorcet's theory.

Condorcet was an even greater enthusiast and optimist than Helvétius. He believed that the spread of the principles of the French Revolution would eliminate all fundamental social evils. Perhaps it is fortunate for him that he did not survive past 1794.

The teachings of the French revolutionary philosophers were transmitted to England in a less exuberant and much clearer form by philosophical radicals, the acknowledged leader of whom was Bentham. Initially, Bentham was almost exclusively focused on law. Gradually, as he aged, his range of interests broadened, and his views became more destructive. After 1808, he became a republican, a proponent of women's equality, an opponent of imperialism, and an uncompromising democrat. He owed some of these views to James Mill. Both believed in the omnipotence of education. Bentham's acceptance of the principle of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" was influenced by democratic sentiment, yet this acceptance entailed opposition to the doctrine of human rights, which he directly characterized as "nonsense."

The philosophical radicals differed from figures like Helvétius and Condorcet in many respects. Temperamental, they were persistent and enjoyed developing their theories in details that had direct practical relevance. They placed great importance on economic theory, which they themselves sought to develop as a science. The tendency toward exuberance found in Bentham and John Stuart Mill, but absent in Malthus or James Mill, was strictly moderated by this "science" and particularly by Malthus's grim version of the theory of population, which asserted that the majority living on wages must always, except following a plague, earn the bare minimum necessary for survival for themselves and their families. Another significant distinction between the Benthamites and their French predecessors was that, in industrial England, there existed a sharp conflict between entrepreneurs and workers, leading to trade unionism and socialism. In this conflict, the Benthamites, broadly speaking, sided with the entrepreneurs against the working class. However, their last representative, John Stuart Mill, gradually distanced himself from the strict adherence to his father's principles and, as he grew older, became less and less hostile to socialism and less and less convinced of the eternal truths of classical economic theory. According to his autobiography, this process of softening hostility toward socialism began with his readings of the Romantic poets.

The Benthamites, initially moderately revolutionary, gradually ceased to be so, partly due to the success of their attempts to persuade the English government of the validity of some of their views and partly due to the opposition posed by the rising strength of socialism and trade unionism. As noted earlier, those who opposed traditions could be categorized into two types: rationalists and romantics, though figures like Condorcet exhibited elements of both. The Benthamites were almost entirely rationalists, and rationalists were also the socialists who revolted against both them and the existing economic order. This intellectual movement would not attain a definitive philosophical form until Marx, whom we will examine later.

The romantic form of protest is quite distinct from the rationalist form, though both trace their roots back to the French Revolution and the philosophers who directly preceded it. The romantic form, as seen in Byron, appears in a non-philosophical guise, while in the figures of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, it begins to articulate itself in the language of philosophy. It aims to exalt the will at the expense of intellect, to be impatient with lengthy reasoning, and to celebrate the frenzy of certain forms. In practical politics, it is significant as an ally of nationalism. By its tendency, if not always, it finds expression in reality; it is resolutely hostile to what is commonly termed reason and seeks to be anti-scientific. Some of its most extreme forms can be found among Russian anarchists, yet in Russia, the rationalist form of protest ultimately prevailed. Germany has always been more receptive to romanticism than other countries, providing a governmental outlet for the anti-rationalist philosophy of sheer will.

Thus far, in our exploration of philosophical views, we have noted the influences of traditions within philosophy, literature, and politics. However, other sources of philosophical perspectives must be acknowledged—namely, science and machine production. The impact of machine production began to manifest in theoretical discourse starting with Marx, and since then, it has gradually become more pronounced. The influence of science, while significant since the seventeenth century, assumed new forms throughout the nineteenth century.

Just as Galileo and Newton defined the seventeenth century, so too did Darwin come to embody the essence of the nineteenth century. Darwin's theory comprises two parts. On one hand, there exists the doctrine of evolution, which asserts that various forms of life gradually developed from common ancestors. This notion, now widely accepted, is not new; it was championed by figures such as Lamarck and Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, not to mention Anaximander. Darwin amassed a vast array of empirical data in support of this doctrine and, in the second part of his theory, endeavored to unveil the cause of evolution. In doing so, he conferred upon the doctrine a popularity and scientific rigor it had previously lacked, yet he cannot be regarded as its originator.

The second aspect of Darwin’s theory is the concept of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. All animals and plants reproduce at a rate surpassing nature’s capacity to sustain them. Thus, in every generation, many perish before reaching an age where they might reproduce. What determines which among them will survive? To some extent, this is undoubtedly a matter of sheer luck, yet there exists another, more significant reason. Animals and plants are generally not exact replicas of their parents; they exhibit variations that may enhance or diminish particular measurable traits. In any given environment, representatives of the same species compete for survival, and those best adapted to their surroundings stand the greatest chance of thriving. Consequently, among random deviations, those that are advantageous will dominate in the adult population of each generation. Thus, from generation to generation, the deer runs ever faster, the cat stalks its prey with increasing stealth, and the giraffe's neck stretches longer. Given sufficient time, this mechanism, according to Darwin, could account for the entire gradual development from simple unicellular organisms to Homo sapiens.

This aspect of Darwin’s theory has been debated extensively and is viewed by most biologists as a subject that necessitates many important clarifications. Yet, what primarily interests the historian of ideas in the nineteenth century is the dissemination of Darwinian thought into economic theories at large, particularly among philosophical radicals. The driving force behind evolution, according to this perspective, is a form of biological economics in a world of free competition. It was precisely Malthus's doctrine on population, applied to the animal and plant kingdoms, that inspired Darwin's contemplation of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as the engine of evolution.

Darwin himself was a liberal, but his theory bore implications that were, to some degree, antagonistic to traditional liberalism. The belief that all humans are equal by birth and that differences among adults are entirely shaped by upbringing was incompatible with his emphasis on inherent differences within species. Had acquired traits been hereditary, as Lamarck asserted and as Darwin himself was inclined to think, the opposition between Darwin's views and those of Helvétius might have been somewhat mitigated. However, it appeared that only innate traits were inheritable, with the exception of relatively insignificant characteristics. Thus, the innate disparities among humans assumed a foundational significance.

From the theory of evolution arises yet another consequence, independent of the specific mechanism of evolution proposed by Darwin. If humans and animals share a common ancestor, and if the development of humans traversed stages where changes were so prolonged and subtle that there were beings whose classification as either human or animal remains uncertain, then the question arises: at what stage in evolution do humans or their proto-human ancestors begin to be considered equals? Would the upright-pedaling Pithecanthropus, had he been properly educated, have accomplished work akin to that of Newton? Would the Piltdown Man have penned the poetry of Shakespeare had he not been condemned for poaching? A staunch advocate of equality who answers these questions affirmatively must regard anthropoid apes as equal to human beings. And why should we stop at anthropoid apes? I see no counterargument he could raise against the rationale for granting voting rights to oysters. Proponents of evolution may insist that not only the doctrine of the equality of all humans but also human rights should be acknowledged as non-biological, as they emphasize the distinctions between humans and other animals too starkly.

However, there exists another aspect of liberalism that is greatly accentuated by the doctrine of evolution—namely, the belief in progress. To the extent that the state of the world permits optimism, evolution is welcomed by liberals, for it provides fresh arguments against orthodox theology. Even Marx, whose teachings are, in certain respects, pre-Darwinian, initially intended to dedicate his book to Darwin.

The prestige of biology compelled those whose thinking was influenced by science to apply biological rather than mechanical categories to the world. Everything was viewed as developing, making it easy to conceive of an intrinsic purpose inherent to development. Despite Darwin's teachings, many people believed that evolution justified faith in a cosmic goal. The notion of the organism became key to the scientific and philosophical explanation of the laws of nature; thought rooted in an atomistic conception began to be regarded as outdated by the nineteenth century. Ultimately, this perspective even influenced theoretical physics. In politics, it naturally led to the exaltation of society in opposition to the individual. This aligns with the growing power of the state as well as with nationalism, which could invoke Darwin's doctrine of survival of the fittest, applying it not to individuals but to nations. Yet here we step into the realm of non-scientific views that are engendered in the public by scientific theories that have been misunderstood.

While biology fought against a mechanistic view of the world, contemporary economic techniques exerted an opposite influence on the development of philosophical thought. Until approximately the end of the eighteenth century, science-based techniques, in contrast to natural scientific principles, had no significant impact on prevailing opinions. It was only with the rise of industrialism that technology began to influence human thought. Even then, for a prolonged period, its effect remained more or less indirect. Those who formulated philosophical theories typically maintained only a tenuous connection to production. The Romantics observed and detested the ugliness that industrialism wrought upon once-beautiful landscapes and the vulgarity they attributed to those who “made money” in commerce. This stance positioned them in opposition to the middle class, sometimes nudging them towards an alliance with advocates of the proletariat. Engels praised Carlyle, oblivious to Carlyle's desire for the subjugation of wage workers to a master class reminiscent of the Middle Ages rather than their liberation. Socialists welcomed industrialism but sought to free industrial workers from the dominion of entrepreneurs. When confronting these issues, they were influenced by industrialism, though it impacted the ideas they employed in addressing these problems to a considerably lesser extent.

The most significant consequence of machine production for the worldview we construct is an intensified sense of human power. This acceleration merely hastened a process that began at the dawn of history when humanity's fear of wild animals diminished with the advent of agriculture. However, this acceleration was so profound that it engendered a radically new worldview among those endowed with the powers created by modern technology. Mountains and waterfalls, once regarded as natural phenomena, can now be obliterated if they obstruct progress, and useful waterfalls can be constructed. Once barren and fertile regions existed in contrast, but now, if the populace so desires, deserts can be transformed into flourishing gardens, while fertile lands may be turned into wastelands by the overly optimistic who lack knowledge. Previously, peasants lived as their parents and grandparents had and believed as their forebears had. The Church's authority could not entirely eradicate the pagan rites masquerading as Christian, intertwined with local saints. Now, authorities can mandate that peasant children attend school, transforming the mindset of farmers within a single generation. One could argue that something akin to this has been achieved in Russia.

Thus, among those who directly manage affairs or interact with those who do, a new faith in power arises: first, in humanity's prowess in its confrontations with nature, and subsequently in the rulers' dominion over human beings, whose beliefs and aspirations they attempt to control through scientific propaganda, particularly via education. The result is a diminished sense of permanence. The absence of change seems untenable. Nature is merely raw material. The portion of the human race that ineffectively participates in governance is considered raw material. Certain antiquated concepts, representing humanity's belief in the limits of human power, remain: the two principal ones being God and truth (I do not mean to imply they are logically connected). Such concepts gradually fade. Even when not overtly denied, they lose significance, continuing to exist only in an external manner. This worldview is novel, and it is impossible to predict how humanity will adapt to it. It has already precipitated tremendous upheavals and will undoubtedly provoke further chaos in the future. The urgent task of our time is to forge a philosophy capable of confronting individuals intoxicated by the prospect of nearly limitless power, as well as the apathy of helplessness.

Although many still sincerely believe in human equality and theoretical democracy, the imagination of contemporary individuals is deeply shaken by the patterns of social organization suggested by the industrial framework of the nineteenth century, which is fundamentally undemocratic. On one side stand the captains of industry, while on the other lie the masses of workers. The internal destruction of democracy has yet to be recognized by ordinary citizens in democratic nations, but it has preoccupied most philosophers since Hegel. The acute opposition between the interests of the majority and those of the minority they identified found its practical expression in fascism. Among philosophers, Nietzsche openly sided with the minority, while Marx fervently championed the majority. Perhaps Bentham was the only significant philosopher to attempt reconciling these opposing interests; as a result, he faced hostility from both factions.

To articulate any contemporary ethics of human relations, one must acknowledge the necessary limitations on human power over the external environment and the desirable constraints on human power over fellow humans.